Girl in a Bar - Part VII/Epilogue

Chapter Title - In-flight Movie

Friday

They hadn't really talked since lunch on Tuesday. Three days in a row where they saw each other only in passing. Except for that panicked Thursday evening getting ready for dinner with Buffy, Ginny and Hermione had spent so little time together that they had barely had time to say hello or goodnight.

Most mornings that week Hermione had been out of the flat and on her way to work before Ginny was even awake. Wednesday evening Hermione had been out late with Ron and they'd both been too busy to meet for lunch on Thursday. And Hermione had already gone to bed before Ginny made it home Thursday night.

While not that common an occurrence in the two years they'd shared a flat, they always made an effort to stay abreast of what the other was doing. So when this happened they usually tried to catch up with each other at the Burrow the following weekend.

Friday morning Ginny wasn't too surprised to wake up to find a note addressed to her that simply said "Lunch in the park." She knew Hermione wouldn't want to wait another week to find out about the reception the night before, since she knew Ginny wouldn't want to talk if any of her brothers, especially Ron, were at the Burrow for the weekend. And she had some things she needed to ask her before then also.

"Hermione, you have to teach me how to do e-mail!" Ginny said anxiously, before Hermione could start questioning her about the previous night. They'd barely settled down to eat in their usual spot in their favorite park. Like most days when they ate lunch there they had it to themselves.

"E-mail? Why? Who would you send it to?" a confused Hermione asked. They had a computer in their flat that Hermione used when she needed to resort to the Internet for research but Ginny had expressed no interest in anything related to it until now. While she seemed to have no problems learning to use most modern muggle inventions, and even had her own cell phone, the residual magic in the Ministry office prevented the use of computers in Ministry offices so there'd been no real reason for Ginny to learn how to use one.

"Buffy travels a lot and I want to write to her. She said she checks her e-mail every day or so if she can but letters sit in her office until she gets back from trips. And we both know sending her owls isn't really an option." Hermione nodded in understanding. "Will you help me?" Ginny asked hopefully.

"Okay. Did you want me to show you Sunday night when we get back from the Burrow?"

"That would be great!" Ginny answered enthusiastically. "Thanks Hermione!"

"And?" she smiled conspiratorially. "How did last night go?"

"Great! The reception was great fun. And I met Buffy's boss. He seems like a nice person. And you probably can't guess who we saw there."

"Who?"

"Bill."

"Bill? Your 'can't pry him loose from Egypt' brother Bill?"

"Yes! He got an invitation for some reason." Ginny shrugged. "The goblins at Gringotts could smell money in it so they let him go."

"How was dinner? Was it worth the extra time for the reception?" Buffy had mentioned the dining room when she'd given Hermione the tour earlier in the week but she hadn't actually seen it.

"It was fantastic. They have an excellent chef. It was some of the best muggle food I've ever tasted!"

"It sounds like you had fun. Did she tell you anything more about who she works for or her job?" Hermione asked.

"She promised to tell me her whole life story some day." Hermione raised an eyebrow at that. "But she told me just enough last night so I wouldn't feel too out of place at the reception."

Hermione frowned. "That was nice of her. What did she tell you?"

"Just that she worked for a really old sort of secret society that mostly did research and that she travelled and helped the people they did the research for. Oh, and she's been doing it since she was fifteen." Ginny shook her head. "It almost sounded like she works for a bunch of secretive librarians."

"Okay..." This wasn't quite as much as Hermione had hoped Buffy would tell Ginny but it at least was a start.

Ginny could tell Hermione was concerned about something about Buffy. "Hermione, I know you told me that you might not be able to find out anything that would explain why Buffy seems to be able to see things like the Leaky Caldron, even though she's a muggle. But you obviously know something about her that I don't!"

"Ginny, You know I can't tell you anything related to any muggles my Ministry committee works with." Hermione hinted.

"Yes, I know. Oh. Oh..." Ginny was surprised at this revelation. If Hermione couldn't talk about it then there was probably a good reason. "Can you tell me anything at all? Is there any reason why I shouldn't keep spending time with her?"

"No. No real reason. And you know I really can't say anything. I do think her life is a lot more complicated than she's told you and while she doesn't know about the wizarding world she is aware of other sorts of magic. I don't think she'd be too surprised if you ever had to tell her you're a witch." Hermione frowned again. "When she does finally tell you what she really does for a living... I don't think you should mention it to any of your brothers. I don't think she's any danger to you or your family but I'm not sure they'll see it that way."

And with that comment, Hermione refused to discuss the issue any further and they spent the rest of lunch discussing what they would be doing for the weekend. It was starting to sound like it would be a full house at the Burrow.

Following an early morning breakfast with Fred, Izzy, and Jayne, an energetic Buffy met with Giles to discuss the reception. He was off to Zurich after lunch and this would be her last chance to grill him in person before she had to head back to Cleveland. And with Giles some discussions just worked better in person.

"Good morning Giles, Randall. What's first? And what are you getting us in Switzerland?" she asked kiddingly.

"Getting in Switzerland?" Asked a puzzled Giles. "It is just another meeting with our bankers."

"Bankers? More hidden old Council money for the budget? Cool! I could use a new crossbow! And I'm sure Willow could use more stinky herbs." Buffy grinned and winked at Randall, who was leaving Giles' office as she sat down.

Giles didn't take the bait but he'd known her long enough to know when she was kidding and she hadn't expected him to do more than grimace.

"Buffy, you have yet to tell me how you became acquainted with Miss Granger prior to our Wednesday meeting with her and the Minister." he reminded her.

"Giles, you know how you are always saying there really aren't coincidences when you're the slayer?"

"Yes... though I'm surprised you remembered that."

"Well, Wednesday's meeting is one of three, so far, that have happened to me this week. Do you want to hear the abridged version or the whole story?" She almost giggled at his expression. It all but shouted 'get on with it please'. A raised Giles eyebrow had never really intimidated her and in fact, the older she became the more it amused her. "I should warn you that the full story includes drinking, and dancing, and a total lack of violence."

"I'm sure there's a middle ground somewhere that won't embarrass either of us." he said.

"Okay. Well, it all started when I met Ginny in a small out of the way pub Monday when I'd gotten tired of dusty sight-seeing. You know, Giles, I think I could give a better Jack-the-Ripper tour than the one I took Monday."

"Without mentioning magic or vampires?"

"Jack the Ripper was a vampire? Why didn't I know that?"

"No, he wasn't. But they were involved. Please continue with your story." He encouraged her with his best librarian scowl.

"Sorry. Anyway, we went dancing Tuesday night and that's when I met her roommate, who just happens to be the person in question. They both did fairly well dancing with Fred and me, for non-slayers anyway, though Hermione seems to be more of the librarian type. Probably perfect watcher material. Oh yeah... that reminds me. She wanted to know if she could check out our library. I told her she'd have to talk with you about it."

"Thanks. I'll have to think about it and check with the librarian." he said, making a note.

"Okay, back to the story. When Ginny's roommate showed up here Wednesday morning I was totally surprised." Buffy shook her head. "Neither one of them seems like they work for the government."

"This Ginny also works for the British government? And you are becoming friends with her? Are you sure that's wise? Remember what happened the last time you became involved with someone in the government."

"That was completely different! Besides, we're not 'involved', whatever that means. We're just becoming good friends." She frowned at him. "She does bookkeeping for some kind of government property office. It sounds perfectly harmless, though she did sound bored with it when she talked about it."

"What were the other two coincidences you mentioned?"

"At last night's reception I met Ginny's older brother Bill. Strangely enough, he was one of the people on that list you insisted on giving me last night."

"Really? What was your impression of him?"

"He seemed nice. He also seemed to either know or know about everyone from that list that you wanted me to meet. And he warned us that we really shouldn't trust some of them. Where did you get the list from anyway? And do you know what they all do?"

"Yes, I'm well aware of what most of them do or claim to do." He pulled a thick folder out of his desk and handed it to her. "I don't know if you realize just how self sufficient the old Council really was." he said as she looked through it. "They preferred to train watchers to do things instead of using outside agencies. Over the centuries, small specialist departments were formed. Unfortunately, most of the current specialists didn't survive the First. And the ones that did have mostly been retired over the last year if they couldn't agree to our new operational guidelines.

It'll be years before we have enough people trained to do more than just work with the new slayers. We really don't have the resources to start training specialists in all sorts of other things. So we're checking into hiring outside experts on an as-needed basis for any special tasks that might come up.

One of those old specialty departments kept track of ancient mystical objects and when possible attempted to retrieve them and put them somewhere safe from the public. The last head of that department was very concerned about his 'civilian' competition." He motioned towards the folder. "Unfortunately, his entire department was wiped out by the First and what you are holding is the only information we have about them. We really want to know which ones we might be able to hire. Inviting them to the reception was part of the process."

"Okay. But it looks like you already have pictures of them here. What was the deal with the spy camera?" she asked curiously.

"It's an invention of Willow's that Dawn wanted to try out the last time she was here. When she heard about the reception she suggested we try it out." Giles ignored her muttered 'thought as much' and continued. "What it takes a picture of is someone's aura. We believe that it will help us pick who we can work with. Which one is Ginny's brother?"

Buffy handed him the stack of documents with Bill Weasley's picture on top. "It seems accurate, if he was telling the truth last night. I do wonder what an English bank is doing sending someone to Egypt to appraise ancient artifacts. And why whomever wrote this thought he was extremely lucky when dealing with cursed objects."

"Are there any others you thought were interesting?"

"Well, this one is the person who mentioned that one of the exhibits was a forgery." She leafed through the documents. "Is it possible for someone to live that long and not look it? According to this she should be at least fifty but she looked like she was in her twenties last night.

And this Dr. Jones has apparently not gone anywhere in decades. Strictly a homebody. He wasn't there last night. Oh and this one..." she waved another document at Giles "she's supposedly missing. No one has seen her for the last year."

"It's not surprising the information is out of date. No one has looked at it in over two years. Did anyone else you met last night catch your eye?"

"Yes. Her!" she thrust another stack of documents at him. "I ran into her several years ago in Sunnydale. She seemed to know Willow in a stalkerish kind of way. And she seems to like guns."

"Ah yes. Lady Lara Croft."

"You know her?"

"Of her, yes. We haven't been formally introduced. She owns a home in Westbury. It's near the retreat owned by the coven Willow stayed with the summer after Tara died. She's actually well known in this field though she likes to pretend she's just a photographer."

"Okay. She's the third coincidence. It's almost like a trail leading from Ginny to Willow. Any ideas if it really means anything?"

"A few thoughts but nothing concrete. Discovering the meaning behind a string of coincidences is more of an art than a science. Understanding a prophecy is often easier and more straightforward."

"Okay. Got it. It means something but we'll probably never know what."

They talked for a little longer before Giles had to leave for another meeting.

The evening had far exceeded any expectations she might have had. For once the Powers That Be had left Buffy alone, and she had warned both Willow and her sister not to call. They made it through the evening without interruptions of any kind.

After spending the rest of the day in meetings and churning through reams of paperwork in preparation for her departure Saturday morning, Buffy managed to escape the office early enough to prepare for spending the evening with Ginny at her borrowed flat in the Council complex.

Not wanting to frighten her away with her own cooking, geared more to large productions like Thanksgiving than small intimate dinners, Buffy had ordered out for curry and they'd watched a light comedy, something Meg Ryan-ish, and chatted amiably about anything and everything, about their families and friends, with a lot of comfortable silences thrown in for good measure. Buffy hadn't felt this in tune with someone on such a short acquaintance since she'd first met Willow. Not even that unquantifiable slayer something she experienced around Faith felt like this.

But the evening had to end eventually. She needed to get Ginny home so she could get some sleep before heading to the airport before sunup.

"Would you like me to walk you back to your flat or I can get you a cab?" Buffy asked her.

"It's a bit of a walk for this late at night. I should probably take a cab."

"Okay."

Ginny wasn't sure if she was imagining hearing disappointment in Buffy's voice. The evening had been pleasant and she would rather it wasn't ending but she didn't want to drag Buffy half way across London just to keep her company. Especially if she had to get up so early in the morning.

"We're going to have to get together the next time you get to London. The past few days have been wonderful." she said, smiling at Buffy with what she hoped looked like encouragement. "And you need to call me when you get home tomorrow."

"I will. You already have my phone number and e-mail address. Is there anything else you need before I call that cab?"

"Breakfast?"

"Breakfast?!" Buffy squeaked in surprise.

"Yes!" a suddenly enthusiastic Ginny exclaimed. "Why don't you stop at my flat tomorrow morning on your way to the airport and I'll feed you. You need something better than airport food before such a long trip!"

"It's a thought, but I really can't do that to you. I need to leave for the airport before sunrise if I don't want to miss my morning flight. Can we do this the next time I'm in London?"

"Okay. We can do that."

"Cool!" Buffy smiled at her. Maybe she could find a reason to get back to London a lot sooner than she'd planned. Getting Ginny to fly to Cleveland just for breakfast might be a bit too much but the thought did briefly cross her mind.

Buffy slipped out of her guest flat at the Council complex before dawn, giving herself plenty of time to check in, get through airport security, and on to her gate in Terminal 3.

Check-in had gone quickly, for a Saturday morning. There was plenty of time to grab coffee and a quick bite to eat somewhere before dealing with the chaos of airport security between her and her gate.

She had just turned the corner into the entrance of the Terminal 3 Starbucks when her eyes collided with those of a certain redhead. Buffy gaped at her in shock. "H..how... why...?" Not her most eloquent moment of the past week. She plopped down onto the proffered seat.

"I thought it would be a nice surprise before you are stuck on airplanes for the next 12 hours." Ginny told her with a wide grin. "What do you want? Coffee? Something with chocolate? Or have we converted you to tea yet?" she said with a smiled.

Buffy shuddered at the thought. "Not yet. Coffee would do it."

The flight from Heathrow to Dulles seemed to last forever. Or at least the parts of the nine hour flight she wasn't able to sleep through. Or the parts she didn't spend looking at the picture Ginny had given her at the airport before Buffy had reluctantly headed towards the security gate and her flight. While the photograph of Ginny didn't quite cheer her as much as the hug she'd gotten from her at the airport, she didn't miss her as much when she looked at it.

After dealing with Customs in Washington, the mad dash through the airport to catch her connecting flight was just enough to dispel the lethargy long flights seemed to always instill in her. The cramped flight to Cleveland had her wishing once again that they'd kept the private jets the old Council had used.

Arriving in Cleveland, the only thing on Buffy's mind once she made it to baggage pick-up was to get home so she could call Ginny as she'd promised and then head to bed and sleep off the trip. So the sight of Willow and her sister at the baggage carousel was not entirely welcome, no matter how much she'd missed them.

"Dawn, Willow! Where's Kennedy? Did something come up?"

"No. Why? Kennedy is meeting us at the car." Willow answered.

"I wasn't expecting to be met at the airport. You only do that if something's happened."

"Nothing's happened. I can't meet my favorite sister at the airport when she's been gone for a couple weeks?" Dawn asked.

"I'm your only sister."

"So you shouldn't question my motives!" Dawn huffed, trying to look offended and not really succeeding.

Willow and Dawn grabbed her bags and pulled her along in their wake as they headed towards the exit and their car. Willow occasionally looked back at Buffy as Dawn chattered away about everything that had happened in Cleveland since she'd been in London. From Willow's expression she could tell she was in for an interrogation by her best friend as soon as they got home.

Kennedy was sitting patiently on the hood of the car, waiting for them.

"Buffy."

"Kennedy." Buffy didn't quite get her but for Willow's sake she could tolerate her presence. Even if watching the twists and turns of their relationship tended to make her feel seasick.

"So, do we have pictures?" Kennedy asked as she threw Buffy's luggage in the trunk.

"Pictures?" Buffy turned to look at the other two as they climbed into the car.

"You know. Pictures. Of your new friend?" Kennedy looked at Willow in surprise. "You didn't ask her?"

Willow's reply was interrupted by Dawn, who'd been surreptitiously looking through Buffy's carry-on as she waited for Buffy and Kennedy to get in the car. "Hey Buffy! Who's this?" she asked, waving a photograph in the air.

"Give that to me!" Buffy gasped.

Hopping into the drivers seat, Kennedy grabbed the picture before Buffy could get it back. "Oh nice! You've snagged yourself a redhead. There's nothing like kissing a redhead. What's she like in bed?"

"Kennedy!" yelled a blushing Willow. The unrepentant slayer just grinned and winked at her.

"If you don't mind!" Buffy growled, grabbing the photo back from Kennedy, though not before Willow had also seen it. "She's just a friend."

"Sure she is." Kennedy said with a smirk. "If that's what you want to think."

The rest of the trip from the airport was spent in a strained silence. Dawn had been unable to coax anything out of the offended Buffy about Ginny and had finally given up.

Buffy stomped into the house. "I have a call to make and then I'm going to bed. If anyone has anything they need to say it can wait." She looked pointedly at Kennedy and Willow.

"Well, that went well." Dawn grumbled. "Now she'll never tell us. Thanks a lot guys."

Dawn attempted to ignored her surroundings. The slayer normally on door duty had taken a quick break, leaving her briefly in sole possession of the front desk. The Cleveland office was in an uproar with Willow and Kennedy engaged in their annual Valentines Day fight, and having just gotten back from a month at the Tokyo Council office, Buffy seemed intent on sleeping through it. She wished she could follow her sister's example.

Buffy had stumbled in the night before, mumbling something unintelligible about the Chinese and the French and saying that the next time they needed extra help in Tokyo they could have Faith, or if she wouldn't go they would get Riley, if she had to track him down herself in whatever jungle he was currently hiding in. Before going up to their apartment in the main building, she'd threatened to tear anyone who dared to disturb her into tiny pieces and mail them to Giles in London.

Even Xander stayed away from Buffy when she was in that kind of mood. He'd flown in from L.A. earlier in the week to check up on the work on the armory and adjoining library. Though he had an excuse, Dawn suspected she wouldn't see him until he was ready to leave. The last Cleveland apocalypse had spilled over into the Council office and had proven how insecure the main building really was if anything actually made it inside. This was just the first step in renovating the office to improve its security.

Until it was finished, Dawn was left scrambling to find a quiet corner she could use while translating the most recent prophecy someone had sent them from the London office. Watching the front entrance had seemed like the perfect plan at the time. With all of the new spells and alarms Willow had put around all of the entrances to the Council buildings in Cleveland there was no real chance of being surprised.

It also kept her away from Kennedy, who'd been in a bad mood for weeks, even before the immanent approach of Valentine's Day. Since finding out that no slayers, including herself, were allowed to go with Willow on an important quest for the Devon coven she'd made life miserable for everyone.

Sitting at the front desk, with her head buried in a Greek translation of an ancient Sumerian text she was using to cross-reference the prophecy, Dawn was startled by the loud buzz of the doorbell on the front door. They weren't in the middle of an apocalypse so it was too early for a pizza delivery. They also weren't expecting any visitors, and demons didn't usually ring the bell in broad daylight. The coven had promised to send them someone to help out while Willow was on their quest but she wasn't expected for at least another week.

Looking up curiously, she saw a woman approximately her height standing in the entrance, bundled up against the brisk cold of a Cleveland February. With none of Willow's alarms, even the magical ones, going off, Dawn let her into the lobby.

"I was told you needed a witch." the woman said, unbuttoning her coat, pulling off her woolen hat, and shaking out her red hair.

• And this would be the end. For now.
• The Epilogue has been posted as a separate part on TtH.
• How she ended up in Cleveland is a story for another day. See the link below. Just be aware it occurs between Part VII and the Epilogue.

© Copyright 2009 Andy Stoffel. Last update: 7/19/09; 10:51:56 PM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.